| 1 | var poem = "Now we will count to twelve\n" + |
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| 2 | "and we will all keep still\n" + |
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| 3 | "For once on the face of the earth,\n" + |
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| 4 | "let's stop for a second,\n" + |
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| 5 | "and not move our arms so much.\n" + |
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| 6 | "It would be an exotic moment\n" + |
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| 7 | "without rush, without engines;\n" + |
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| 8 | "we would all be together\n" + |
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| 9 | "in a sudden strangeness.\n" + |
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| 10 | "Fisherman in the cold sea\n" + |
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| 11 | "would not harm whales\n" + |
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| 12 | "and the man gathering salt\n" + |
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| 13 | "would not look at his hurt hands.\n" + |
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| 14 | "Those who prepare green wars,\n" + |
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| 15 | "wars with gas, wars with fire,\n" + |
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| 16 | "victories with no survivors,\n" + |
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| 17 | "would put on clean clothes\n" + |
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| 18 | "and walk about with their brothers\n" + |
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| 19 | "in the shade, doing nothing.\n" + |
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| 20 | "What I want should not be confused\n" + |
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| 21 | "with total inactivity.\n" + |
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| 22 | "Life is what it is about;...\n" + |
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| 23 | "If we were not so single-minded\n" + |
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| 24 | "about keeping our lives moving,\n" + |
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| 25 | "and for once could do nothing,\n" + |
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| 26 | "perhaps a huge silence\n" + |
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| 27 | "might interrupt this sadness\n" + |
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| 28 | "of never understanding ourselves\n" + |
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| 29 | "and of threatening ourselves with death.\n" + |
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| 30 | "Perhaps the earth can teach us\n" + |
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| 31 | "as when everything seems dead in winter\n" + |
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| 32 | "and later proves to be alive.\n" + |
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| 33 | "Now I'll count up to twelve\n" + |
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| 34 | "and you keep quiet and I will go. \n" + |
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| 35 | "Something\n" + |
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| 36 | "just now\n" + |
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| 37 | "moved through my heart\n" + |
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| 38 | "like the thinnest of blades\n" + |
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| 39 | "as that red-tail pumped\n" + |
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| 40 | "once with its great wings\n" + |
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| 41 | "and flew above the gray, cracked\n" + |
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| 42 | "rock wall.\n" + |
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| 43 | "It wasn't\n" + |
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| 44 | "about the bird, it was\n" + |
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| 45 | "something about the way\n" + |
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| 46 | "stone stays\n" + |
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| 47 | "mute and put, whatever\n" + |
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| 48 | "goes flashing by.\n" + |
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| 49 | "Sometimes,\n" + |
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| 50 | "when I sit like this, quiet,\n" + |
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| 51 | "all the dreams of my blood\n" + |
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| 52 | "and all outrageous divisions of time\n" + |
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| 53 | "seem ready to leave,\n" + |
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| 54 | "to slide out of me.\n" + |
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| 55 | "Then, I imagine, I would never move.\n" + |
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| 56 | "By now\n" + |
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| 57 | "the hawk has flown five miles\n" + |
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| 58 | "at least,\n" + |
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| 59 | "dazzling whoever else has happened\n" + |
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| 60 | "to look up.\n" + |
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| 61 | "I was dazzled. But that\n" + |
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| 62 | "wasn't the knife.\n" + |
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| 63 | "It was the sheer, dense wall\n" + |
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| 64 | "of blind stone\n" + |
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| 65 | "without a pinch of hope\n" + |
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| 66 | "or a single unfulfilled desire\n" + |
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| 67 | "sponging up and reflecting,\n" + |
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| 68 | "so brilliantly,\n" + |
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| 69 | "as it has for centuries,\n" + |
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| 70 | "the sun's fire.\n" + |
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| 71 | "An eagle's nest on the head of an old redwood on one of the\n" + |
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| 72 | "precipice-footed ridges\n" + |
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| 73 | "Above Ventana Creek, that jagged country which nothing but a\n" + |
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| 74 | "falling meteor will ever plow; no horseman\n" + |
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| 75 | "Will ever ride there, no hunter cross this ridge but the winged\n" + |
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| 76 | "ones, no one will steal the eggs from this fortress.\n" + |
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| 77 | "The she-eagle is old, her mate was shot long ago, she is now mated\n" + |
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| 78 | "with a son of hers.\n" + |
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| 79 | "When lightning blasted her nest she built it again on the same\n" + |
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| 80 | "tree, in the splinters of the thunderbolt.\n" + |
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| 81 | "The she-eagle is older than I; she was here when the fires of\n" + |
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| 82 | "eighty-five raged on these ridges,\n" + |
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| 83 | "She was lately fledged and dared not hunt ahead of them but ate\n" + |
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| 84 | "scorched meat. The world has changed in her time;\n" + |
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| 85 | "Humanity has multiplied, but not here; men's hopes and thoughts\n" + |
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| 86 | "and customs have changed, their powers are enlarged,\n" + |
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| 87 | "Their powers and their follies have become fantastic,\n" + |
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| 88 | "The unstable animal never has been changed so rapidly. The\n" + |
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| 89 | "motor and the plane and the great war have gone over him,\n" + |
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| 90 | "And Lenin has lived and Jehovah died: while the mother-eagle\n" + |
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| 91 | "Hunts her same hills, crying the same beautiful and lonely cry and\n" + |
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| 92 | "is never tired; dreams the same dreams,\n" + |
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| 93 | "And hears at night the rock-slides rattle and thunder in the throats\n" + |
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| 94 | "of these living mountains.\n" + |
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| 95 | "It is good for man\n" + |
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| 96 | "To try all changes, progress and corruption, powers, peace and\n" + |
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| 97 | "anguish, not to go down the dinosaur's way\n" + |
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| 98 | "Until all his capacities have been explored: and it is good for him\n" + |
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| 99 | "To know that his needs and nature are no more changed in fact\n" + |
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| 100 | "in ten thousand years than the beaks of eagles."; |
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